Update: Photobucket has reverted their pay policy and restored most of their old 3rd party content for free. This means most of the dead threads on hobby sites such as this one can be enjoyed once again, without moderators or users doing anything.

While this is a fortunate boon to hobby forums, it should be remembered that many imagehosting sites have folded or changed beyond recognition (incl. Imageshack), while the once-default choice of Photobucket itself has proved unstable. While the large website of Imgur remains dependable for the moment being, things can change fast, as we saw with Photobucket. Digital storage is insecure and fragile, yet brilliant in its outreach.

As such, do consider these following two steps to backup hobby pictures and artworks for public view:

1. Upload your own hobby pictures into one or more Google Drive folders (or similar), set access to share, and insert a link to this folder in your hobby log(s) and showcase thread(s). That way, even if whatever imagehosting site(s) you are using folds in the future, or play 3rd party hosting rodeo, others may still be able to access your work, admire it and be inspired through this backup folder, even if you yourself have gone inactive.

2. Search out those old treasure threads which you know of, where masterclass work of conversions, sculpting, scenery making, miniature painting or artwork were created by very talented people. Save a selection of these images yourself, upload to both one or more imagehosting sites like Imgur, and to a Google Drive folder. Then you can either pool your and others' backup folders of the best of the best in some common thread, or perhaps commit thread necromancy (if this is not frowned upon on a particular forum) where you share links to these backup albums and folders in the thread in question - or send these links to an active moderator to have inserted into the first post of inactive treasure threads (if threadomancy happens to be frowned upon).

Note that this can be organized as a group endeavour, where a bunch of active members name and link the very best which their hobby site has to offer, and split salvage of these different inactive members' pictures between themselves. If this is done, then it may be advisible to avoid repetitive images, most WIP pictures that lead up to a finished result, pictures of sprues and so on: Salvage selectively, save the very best and don't maximize your voluntary burden.

Other ways of backing up images of others and sharing them publicly are possible - and please talk about them here or elsewhere - but the point to stress here is that inactive members do not save their own pictures for sharing: That is up to the active members to do, if they deem a particular hobby work or artwork worthy to save for future years to inspire themselves and others.

At the moment of writing, a majority of older wargaming hobby pictures online have likely been shared over Photobucket. We have been granted an unexpected reprieve with their reversal of the pay-to-share debacle*, meaning all those dead hobby logs are suddenly up with visible pictures again. A reprieve which we should all consider exploiting while it last: Now is your chance to salvage the true gems of others and help save the very best pictures for the future.

__________________* Which is why one shouldn't even consider to delete one's Photobucket account unless one have already backed up the images and re-uploaded those one wish to share. Redundancy is key.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum